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<title>Love is just the murder of the heart by Baryshnikov</title>
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<h1><a href="https://archiveofourown.org/works/25079758">Love is just the murder of the heart</a> by <a class='authorlink' href='https://archiveofourown.org/users/Baryshnikov/pseuds/Baryshnikov'>Baryshnikov</a></h1>

<table class="full">

<tr><td><b>Series:</b></td><td>Crossing the red-stained veil [12]</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Category:</b></td><td>Harry Potter - J. K. Rowling</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Genre:</b></td><td>Love, Love/Hate, M/M, Murder Fantasy, Tom hates being in love, Violent Love, Violent Thoughts, what is love?</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Language:</b></td><td>English</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Status:</b></td><td>Completed</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Published:</b></td><td>2020-07-05</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Updated:</b></td><td>2020-07-05</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Packaged:</b></td><td>2021-05-04 03:42:02</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Rating:</b></td><td>Mature</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Warnings:</b></td><td>Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Chapters:</b></td><td>1</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Words:</b></td><td>1,277</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Publisher:</b></td><td>archiveofourown.org</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Story URL:</b></td><td>https://archiveofourown.org/works/25079758</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Author URL:</b></td><td>https://archiveofourown.org/users/Baryshnikov/pseuds/Baryshnikov</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Summary:</b></td><td><div class="userstuff">
              <p>Falling into love was such a violent affair.</p>
            </div></td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Relationships:</b></td><td>Harry Potter/Tom Riddle</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Series:</b></td><td>Crossing the red-stained veil [12]</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Series URL:</b></td><td>https://archiveofourown.org/series/1520894</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Comments:</b></td><td>6</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Kudos:</b></td><td>58</td></tr>

</table>

<a name="section0001"><h2>Love is just the murder of the heart</h2></a>
<div class="story"><div class="fff_chapter_notes fff_head_notes"><b>Author's Note:</b><blockquote class="userstuff">
      <p>This is absolute trash and I apologise for subjecting you to it.</p>
    </blockquote></div><div class="userstuff module">
    
    <p>Tom lay in the bath, the water lapping against his legs. He was still in his clothes, though they were soaked now, the wet creeping up through the cotton until the damp fabric chafed at his skin, branding on to him dark lines of discomfort that he couldn't help but touch at with the tips of his fingers. </p><p>He pushed them under his collar, rubbing at his skin, trying to dig inside himself and pull out all the twisted cables, as though he was a machine and the feeling that he was having was merely a malfunction. </p><p>But, as much as he wished it was, love was not a malfunction. It couldn't be fixed with a little rewiring or the flick of a switch somewhere in his heart. </p><p>Tom swallowed, pulling his hand back down to his side and sliding down a little deeper into the water. His spine moulding to the shape of the tub and his palms pressing into the cold side. Like this the water slid its fingers across his jaw and down over his throat, lingering on his pulse. </p><p>It would be so easy to drown. </p><p>Love would enjoy that too because, at its heart, love was a brutal thing, and to fall into love was an act of profound self-brutalisation. It was harsh. It was bitter. In many ways it was sick. For, to feel love--to fall so deeply into it--was to give up everything; it was to allow yourself to become degraded, to be abused by the wanting of your own heart. </p><p>And to want that must make you mad. </p><p>After all, if you allowed yourself to fall in love, you must be prepared to have your skin stripped back and your soul bared to the most invasive of scrutiny by the only one who mattered. Whether they wanted to or not, they would see the ripped corners of your soul and the ugly grooves that cut their way through your heart; however much you tried to hide yourself behind glittering gold veneers, they would see the clay that made your bones and the mud that made your flesh. They would see every part of you because love was allowing yourself to be seen, and that was mortifying. </p><p>Tom hated it. </p><p>He hated it so much. </p><p>Even now, he could feel it crawling around inside him, jumbling up his organs, pulling him taut, his skin stretched too tight over his skeleton so that he could practically see his pulse beating itself to death beneath the surface. So too could Tom all but see the slippery serpentine form of love sliding through his blood vessels, stretching him from the inside out, threatening to split him right open.  </p><p>No one warned you how painful it was to be in love; the electrical burning in your nerves and the constant twitch in your fingers. Being in love was like being a star on the crux of a supernova, the world slowing down around you as you feel something monstrous inside you banging on your ribcage to be made free. </p><p>Simply, love was the quickest path to self-ruination. </p><p>It was a disease pressing through the air and working into the spaces between his bones; filling up the hollows he didn't know he had, with feelings he didn't want. Just like an oil spill spreading, uncontained and uncontrolled, poisoning everything it touched with its contaminated slick, it got everywhere. And Tom’s insides were so coated with that thick sludge that called itself a blessing, that he couldn’t breathe without his throat stinging and his lungs threatening to burn him up alive. </p><p>The flames were under his skin right now, flickering and guttering in his heart. It made Tom slide further under the water so that his entire body was encased in the coolness; the weight of his clothes dragging him down against the base of the tub. </p><p>It would be so easy to drown, wouldn't it? </p><p>To watch those lights above him fade and with it the static of his heart go still. It would be nice to be free from the sickness that love had forced upon him, because no one ever said how love ate away a part of you; no one mentioned how it chewed on your heart, taking bite after bite and gulping it down. For love was starving. A creature so denied and so ignored and so regretted that it had become bitter and now it took what it wanted because it could. </p><p>Feelings like that were what made Tom want to scream; what made him want to rip his own chest open and claw out his heart, tearing at it with his fingernails until it was a mangled mess. Deep inside his head, Tom wanted to slam Harry’s shoulders down against the floor and listen to the sound of the human scapula hit the stone.</p><p>Because this was all Harry's fault. </p><p>What love had done him--this mess that it had turned him into--would not have happened if Harry hadn't caught his heart in a fishnet. If he hadn't reeled him in with those smiles and the press of his fingers against Tom's wrists. </p><p>So, yes, Tom wanted to smash Harry’s head against that stone, just hold his neck and bash his head against it again and again until there was a red smear ingrained into the grout of the tiles. And yet, at the same time, he wanted to hold him still, his hands pressed into the base of his neck and the tips of his fingers crawling higher until they were cupping Harry’s jaw. </p><p>As much as he hated himself for it, Tom wanted to kiss him. To take entire bites out of his mouth just to sate this hungered yearning inside his heart. He wanted to hold Harry's face in his hands and the contours of his skin; he wanted to touch him and taste him and tear him apart. </p><p>Because wasn't that part of love? Wanting to slide your fingers between someone else's ribs and to rip them open. Wanting to nestle yourself between their lungs and curl yourself around their heart. </p><p>Beneath the water, Tom's lungs were starting to ache--to burn--and his hands were itching, the fingers tingling as he clenched them, his nails pressed so hard into his palms. He squeezed his eyes shut and ground his teeth together, trying to find the last remnants of oxygen in his lungs.</p><p>If he went up for air, love would wrap itself around his neck and force itself down his throat; it would choke him if he let it. </p><p>It would eat him alive, its teeth chewing on him, and its tongue rolling over his, but being so close to the edge of reality and reason was intoxicating, wasn't it? Having that ultraviolent haze always prickling the tips of his fingers was a heady sensation that got his heart pumping. </p><p>Tom pushed himself up, the coldness of the room hitting him as hard as the oxygen that entered his lungs. He was soaked and shivering, teeth chattering and his hands shaking--violent acts compressed into something acceptable. </p><p>Because no one would understand the perversion of love that he felt. They would not understand that this thing that was twisted and warped and bordering on grotesque was something that he craved as much as he hated; nor could they understand the horrific way that love took over you--the way it ate you. </p><p>And if they did not understand that, then they would not understand that the act of falling in love could also be the act of murdering your own heart.</p>
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